Shirt that brings a lover's touch

Long-distance lovers pining for an embrace once made do with ink, scented paper and an occasional cold shower.

Now, the billet-doux that has satisfied courting couples for generations may disappear altogether, replaced by a "hug shirt" that transmits physical affection without a single platitude.

Its manufacturers claim it is as easy as sending a text message and far more likely to solve a simmering row.

If two people are wearing the shirts, one can "hug" the other by wrapping their arms around their own body.

As lover number one squeezes tight, the shirt measures pressure, heartbeat and temperature, before using mobile Bluetooth technology to send the data to a second shirt.

Lover number two then feels their shirt heating, tingling and vibrating wherever their partner's hands were placed.

The only catch for couples facing a Christmas apart is that it won't be available until next year and costs about the same as an iPod.

On the up-side, it will still be cheaper than a designer shirt, according to Ryan Genz, chief executive of the manufacturer, CuteCircuit. "This is a new kind of telecommunication. It adds diversity to how to talk to people and it is a world first in terms of sending touch over distance," he said.

"It will cost more than a normal shirt but less than a Prada shirt. You can pay £800 for a designer shirt but think that is kind of silly."

But are people actually going to part with hundreds of pounds for a fake hug?

Mr Genz thinks so. He said the shirt started life as a design gimmick, and was continued for wider retail only because there was so much consumer interest.

"We have had requests from military families, where the men are deployed, and from oil-ring companies that want to give it to families who are parted for months at a time," he said.

"The shirt can give a bit of a squeeze, and grows warm where the other person's hands are. So if you wanted to tap someone on the shoulder, the shirt would tingle in that place."

The "hug shirt" is effectively a mobile-phone accessory, and works by sending messages from Bluetooth-enabled phones through "smart fabric" pads. Hugs can also be sent straight from a mobile phone.

It is one of the first examples of how interactive fabrics – or Haptic technology – could appear on the high street. So-called intelligent fabric is already used in sportswear and produced by several British firms, with ski-jackets incorporating iPod and mobile phone controls, and sportsbras recording the wearer's heartbeat and sending the data to a wrist device.